In Protecting the RGB Mouse Pad

In Protecting the RGB Mouse Pad

Recently, The Verge's review team has been trying to get rid of some ancient products lying around our office. We've donated or thrown away some genuine prehistoric gadgets. But there was one tool I knew the second I looked I needed to defend. It was the Razer Firefly, a seven-year-old mouse pad with an RGB lightstrip flashing on its side. It was a very silly and extra tool, and I knew it was made for me.

I've been using the Razer Firefly at my desk in The Verge's Manhattan office for several weeks now. It offers 16.8 million customizable color options. It sits on my side all day, glowing with purple, pink, red, yellow, blue and everything in between. "But what does it do?" Many people have asked me on the go. It absolutely does dudley squats, I tell them. It is a beauty, a vitality. But some days, that vibe is everything.

It's certainly fun to hate obnoxious RGB setups. (And I've been known to do it myself because I agree that some color products are really excessive — the Asus ROG Strix line, I'm looking at you.)

But every day I use Firefly, I'm (slightly) warm to the idea of ​​a chromatic setup. For those of us who often work in solitude (either because we're away or most of our coworkers are), existence can feel like a hamster wheel—we work and work and work continues, and while Colleagues and friends exist with names and icons that live on our screens, to the point where it's hard to convince ourselves that this is all going somewhere, that anyone is listening.

So while I know this may not be a mid-2010 basement gamer for me, I'll continue to allow myself mouse pads. While sun cycles and capitalist routines become so intuitive as to feel monotonous, no one can predict what color a firefly will appear.

The office around me may be gray and empty, but Firefly is bright, happy to be here, and so alive. That LED strip is a faint chime on a table full of utility, and that twang is a reminder that there are small pleasures, there are wonderful joys, and there is a world outside these walls.